Strictly embargoed until 14th May 2019
New campaign encourages East Anglian workers to rethink their ‘lunch on the go’ habits to reduce food and packaging waste #FoodSavvy trial with local businesses helped workers reduce single use plastics by 54% With the average East Anglian worker spending £388 eating ‘lunch on the go’ and using 276 items of lunch packaging annually,i a campaign launches today that aims to create a new culture of meal planning and reusable lunch packaging, to reduce food and packaging waste. The #FoodSavvy Lunch Club, a collaboration between Norfolk and Suffolk Councils and environmental charity Hubbub, was trialled successfully in March 2019 with regional businesses Aviva, AXA, BT and the Environment Agency. It challenged a total of 50 employees to go for a month without using single-use packaging at lunch time. Trial results were encouraging – of the 50 employees taking part, 83% said the #FoodSavvyLunch Club helped them reduce their single use plastics, with participants on average reducing their usage by 54%. Food waste was reduced by approximately 52% per participant and 67% said the trial had helped them to save money.ii Supported by #FoodSavvy, participants were given a #FoodSavvy Savings Guide which provided them with the golden rules for reducing packaging and food waste. They also followed a three-week meal plan packed with simple, healthy, sustainable meals and were challenged to make their own meals for the trial’s final week. Challenge participants, the Axa canteen and local eateries also took part in a pilot Bring Your Own (BYO) Tupperware scheme, ‘Take Away, Give Back’ where customers received a small incentive for bringing their own packagingiii. Following the trial’s success, the campaign is now encouraging the rest of East Anglia to get involved and rethink their own lunch habits by visiting www.foodsavvy.org.uk to take a quiz and find tips on how to plan their lunch meals to save time, packaging and money. Hubbub is also now inviting other businesses and employees to take part by registering their interest via campaigns@hubbub.org.uk. Cafes, canteens and local businesses can get in touch to join Take Away, Give Back and receive artwork and resources to support customers to bring their own containers. Trewin Restorick, CEO of Hubbub said: “’Lunch-on-the-go' items create huge levels of waste and unfortunately much of it isn’t recyclable as it’s made from mixed materials or is contaminated with food residue. By planning lunches in advance and using up items in your fridge you can massively reduce the amount of packaging you use while saving money by cutting down on food waste. If you do buy lunch on the go, don’t be shy – take along your own container to your favourite lunch spot.
We’d encourage anyone wanting to get involved in the campaign to visit the #FoodSavvy website and we’d love more businesses to take on the challenge too – just register your interest.” Andy Grant, Norfolk County Council’s Cabinet Member for Waste, said: “We know that people are becoming more interested in reducing their impact on the environment. By tackling the increasing amount of single-use plastic and food waste at lunchtime, we can not only reduce our environmental footprint, but also save money. By starting a Lunch Club in your workplace, or by encouraging local eateries to offer a discount for reusables, we can all make a real difference.” Councillor Paul West, Suffolk Waste Partnership Vice Chair and Cabinet Member for Waste said: “We are delighted that #FoodSavvy Lunch Club has launched in Suffolk and Norfolk and employees are joining in to reduce their food waste and packaging. It shows how much can be saved in a month by taking simple steps, which adds up to a lot over the course of a year. We welcome businesses engaging with us and the #FoodSavvy campaign wants to work across all areas of our communities as food waste and packaging are a concern for us all. We look forward to more organisations and individuals joining in the collaboration.” Dr Charles Beardall OBE, Environment Agency, Area Director, East Anglia, and Lunch Club participant said: “What a brilliant, thought provoking initiative. The #FoodSavvy Club really made me think hard about the food I waste and, in particular, the huge amount of plastic used in the food I buy and eat. I’ve made a number of small but really effective changes to the way I shop and carry food around that has significantly reduced my use of wasteful plastic. Why not join in and see what you can achieve?” Launched in September 2018, #FoodSavvy is a two-year partnership between Hubbub and Norfolk and Suffolk councils to tackle food waste in East Anglia. Their collective ambition puts the region at the forefront of the UK’s efforts to combat food waste. #FoodSavvy’s uniqueness also lies in the way it is bringing together an entire cross section of the community to tackle the food waste issue, involving businesses, schools, community groups, as well as influencers like chefs, food celebrities, lifestyle bloggers and vloggers. While the initial stage will run for two years, #FoodSavvy’s most successful elements will be scaled up to meet the seven-year target of reducing food waste by 20% by 2025 in line with national framework, the Courtauld Commitment and the global Sustainable Development Goals.
Ends For more information please contact the Hubbub team at Barley Communications: Phoebe Campbell phoebe.campbell@barleycommunications.co.uk 07725 178044 Pippa Henderson pippa.henderson@barleycommunications.co.uk 07453 523796 Nicola Ennis nicola.ennis@barleycommunications.co.uk 07837 201085 Notes to editors
Polling of 1,254 full and part time UK workers by Censuswide in March 2019. About Hubbub Hubbub is a charity which explores innovative ways to interest mainstream consumers in important sustainability issues, through different ‘hubs’ of activity: Food; Fashion; Homes; Neighbourhoods; Sport and Leisure. Hubbub’s previous campaigns have included #SquareMileChallenge, the UK’s first large scale solution to coffee cup recycling, #GiftABundle to get pre-loved baby clothes back into circulation and #PumpkinRescue to encourage more people to eat the carvings from their Halloween Pumpkins. www.hubbub.org.uk @hubbubUK FoodSavvy: www.foodsavvy.org.uk @FoodSavvyNfk @suffolkrecycle
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Censuswide research, March 2019 Hubbub research, April 2019 iii Café 7 Surrey Street, Norwich – 10% off. Ravenscroft Café, Norwich – 10% off. La Tour Cycle Café, Ipswich – 10p off. The Grazing Sheep, Ipswich – 10% off. The Canteen, AXA, Ipswich – 10p off ii